


Poison

by Dichotomous_Dragon



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Comfort Sex, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 19:07:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6163528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dichotomous_Dragon/pseuds/Dichotomous_Dragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bull takes a poisoned dagger during a fight; afterwards, his heart grounds him.<br/>(Trust me, it's a lot sweeter than it sounds!)<br/> </p><p>My entry for Wham-Splat-Porn! for the prompt "something to believe in"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poison

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is titled for the prompt...aka, the prompt got the song 'Something to Believe In" stuck in my brain. Poison sang that song. In this fic, Bull gets poisoned. The circle feels complete, somehow. Also I'm late and can't do better right now (I've gotten like, 3 hours of sleep. I did not do that shit on purpose).
> 
> Please let me know what you think!! If you notice any glaring errors let me know that, too.

The pain from the dagger is hardly recognizable as such, barely a pinprick, but the dizziness comes upon him in a wave, tidal and massive. Bull instantly stumbles, adjusting a swing against a red Templar that should have crushed the man’s chestplate into scrap. Even correcting his aim, he misses altogether. 

“Bull!” The cry comes to him from far away and doesn’t register, not really, not until a bolt of lightning hits the brute so hard his helm splits. As the Templar’s body topples, Bull’s hammer slips from his grip, heavy head gouging the grassy ground underfoot. His stomach roils, nausea and dizziness fighting for supremacy so ferociously that it makes Bull stagger. He drops to his knees beside his weapon a moment later, head spinning.

It’s poison, it has to be. Potent too, to hit him so fast and muck with his faculties so drastically.

Something instinctual in Bull fights free of the fugue long enough to realize someone had to dose him with said poison. He swings one closed fist, relying on his gut; his heavy knuckles meeting the rogue’s face with force, lyrium twisted visage crumpling beneath the strike. The shadow falls and doesn’t stir. 

As things start to go dark, Bull gets one last look at the battlefield, one last appraisal of the situation before he sinks. The Inquisitor’s hand is bright glare in his darkening vision, sickening green light a backlight for a figure twirling a staff with abandon.

Dorian-

 _Shit, Dorian_ \--

Fitting, somehow, that the last thing Bull sees before the tidal wave takes him is Kadan, glittering with lightning like the epicenter of thunderhead, powerful and bright.

Another wave of darkness surges up; Bull falls face first in the grass, and gets pulled under.  
\-----------

The first time he surfaces Bull swears he’s on Seheron, fighting some sort of trap-spell that’s burning him from the inside-out. Maybe outside-in, too, he can’t tell--everything is vicious heat and pain. He thrashes, tries to roll to put it out, tries to do _something_ to make the consuming pain stop. He can’t see and he’s pretty sure he can’t move, though, so maybe this is it. Everything is blackness and fire and then--

\--then, something blissfully cool presses to Bull’s forehead, as stark as a lightning strike against a pitch black sky. The shock makes him gasp, and though the pressure lessens but is still unnaturally cold against his skin, frigid even, and the compress is shaped like two humans hand cast in ice. Bull groans in relief (or tries, anyway, unsure if any sound makes it out of his throat) and goes still.

“ _Don’t you dare,_ ” Bull thinks he hears someone hiss. He doesn’t know what they mean.

\-------

Bull has enough awareness to know he’s being taken, though not enough working senses to tell ‘to where’ or ‘by whom.’ Something cool and damp is draped over his face-- _drugs? Potion of some kind?_ \--and his head is cradled on something lumpy but soft.

Every bit of his body he can still feel is a study in agony, limbs and lungs and muscle shrieking, nothing working as it should. Bull grunts, tries to swipe the cloth from his face, shudders and fails to do anything at all. It’s terrifying in a way few things are, for a man so reliant on his physical prowess in battle.

A deeply familiar voice calls out to him, a gentle pressure stroking along one horn. It’s the one thing Bull can feel that isn’t pain and it grounds him, as do the dulcet tones he can’t quite place.

“Hush, Amatus,” the voice soothes. For some reason the word calms him, and Bull slips away again.  
\-----

The fog clears...later. How _much_ later, Bull can’t be sure, but the whole of him is weary and wrecked. His muscles feel atrophied; his neck and back cricked. He’s never physically felt this old. The padding under him is the right kind of firm, though, and the blankets are soft, much softer than the trail usually allows. Before he can process that properly, however, he becomes aware of another presence in the room.

“Finally awake, I see.” It’s Dorian, perched at his bedside in the old red chair that lives in Bull’s room. It used to live in Dorian’s, before, but now seems rather at home amidst Bull’s larger ensemble. 

That in and of itself is strange. His current location, rather--not the chair itself.

“We’re in...Skyhold?” Bull’s voice crackles with disuse, rough in a way he’s not used to. 

“Indeed. You should have seen your brood struggle with hefting your not-inconsiderable mass up the stairs.” Dorian has his long legs elegantly crossed, one ankle resting on the other knee. He’s dressed down in a soft tunic and leggings, a book in hand. He’s concentrating on said book rather single-mindedly. “Had it not been for the seriousness of your condition, it would have been rather humorous. The whole of the Rest learned a wide array of new curses that morning.”

“How long?” Bull doesn’t try to sit up. He can see Dorian perfectly without moving and wonders if the mage’s placement was deliberate.

“How long have we been back?” Dorian asks blandly. A page turns. “Or how long have you been out?”

“Either.”

“Two days and a week, respectively.” The book snaps closed as it’s deposited on the night stand. “You were rather inexcusably fragile for a few of them, I should like you to know.” Dorian shifts his gaze to his fingernails.

“Pretty sure I’m alright now,” Bull murmurs, and means it. His body feels like shit but his mind is clear, oddly rested. It sounds like his brain got a rather long respite his body didn’t get to enjoy nearly as much. There are images flitting at the corners of his consciousness from the time he lost but they’re fleeting, wispy and incomplete, slipping away from him like smoke. Bull lets them go.

“Indeed. Your medic gave you a clean bill of health, so long as you woke with all your faculties this time. The last of the poison should have cleared your blood yesterday at the latest.” Bull lifted his blankets and peered down his body, squinting his eye thoughtfully as he did so.

“I appear to be all accounted for,” he says seriously. Dorian watches him intently as Bull trails a hand down his chest and side, prodding at a small bandaged wound that’s well on its way to healing. Damn thing probably won’t even scar. 

Bull keeps examining; Dorian keeps watching Bull more seriously than he’ll admit, sitting straight now where he was reclining before. He keeps inching forward, the longer Bull takes, and so with as straight a face as Bull can manage, he lets his eye go wide and whips his hand back out from under the blanket with a shocked sound. 

“Oh shit!”

It takes Dorian less than a breath to be at his side properly, pulling the covers back and asking, “What is it? Are you alright?”

Bull waggles his mangled hand in front of Dorian, face still serious.

“I’m missing some shit,” and to drive the point home, he wiggles his stumpy digits right before Dorian’s face, risk of death and further dismemberment be damned.

“You are an _ass!_ ” Dorian hisses, pulling back from Bull so fast that the motion makes a draft. Bull can see the dance of lightning flit across his knuckles and yes, it was mean, but he had to get Dorian out of his head long enough to really talk to him.

And really, taking the throw pillow from the chair right to the face is a small price to pay for that.

“I cannot _believe_ you,” Dorian seethes, folding his arms and pacing. Bull heaves himself to a sitting position, creaking a bit as he does it, but managing without much fuss. He tucks his ill-gotten pillow behind his head. “After all this--”

“Sorry,” Bull offers; Dorian’s ire gathers itself to a flood so he continues, “-really, Kadan, I am. Just had to make sure you believed me when I said I was fine.” Dorian deflates at the use of the endearment, hackles lowering as he heaves a very impressive sigh.

“Because you could not have simply _said_ as much,” he growls. Bull shrugs.

“Figured you’d take some convincing.” The fact that Dorian doesn't argue further is telling. Bull can’t quite peg it. It’s not anger, nor is annoyance. “Are you okay, Kadan?”

“Ah, _there it is_ ,” Dorian laughs, the sound is mirthless. He closes the distance between them, taking a seat on the mattress at Bull’s side. “I wondered how long it would take you to begin fretting.” His right hand settles on Bull’s cheek, comfortingly warm and ever so gentle. “I’m fine. We’re _all_ fine, Amatus. You were the only one with any lingering troubles.” He clears his throat and finally, _finally_ Dorian’s facade of aloofness starts to properly fail him. The lines around his eyes deepen just a tad as the corners of his mouth tip down, soft and sad. “I was rather concerned, for a moment there.”

“Just one?” Bull asks. He can see Dorian slipping into his head again, back to his worry and whatever horrible outcome he’d built himself up to expect, and grins when Dorian instead pinches Bull’s earlobe. His mustache twitches, but he appears undeterred from the heaviness of his thoughts so Bull adds: “And here I thought you liked me.”

“Hush, you,” and Bull does, because Dorian’s voice gets very quiet as he adds: “I...I’m glad you’re well.”

“Awwww,” Bull says it because he has to; says it just to get the dramatic eye roll; says it because he knows Dorian will appreciate the out. The teasing tone splits the tension Dorian’s statement brought with it, sure as a knife blade; the mage makes a dismissive sound and there go his eyes, rolling so hard Bull’s a little worried Dorian is going to strain something, one of these days. “Nice to know you care, though.”

“Yes. Well.” He stands and stretches while Bull ogles him. “I should get down to your merry band of savages and let them know you’re properly lucid. They’ll have my hide, should they find I have kept you to myself.” _It’s been a long week_ he doesn’t say, but every line in his face is damn near screaming it. “Were I you, I’d prepare to entertain. I suspect you’ll soon have guests.”

“I’ll manage the boys,” Bull nods sagely, “so long as I get some private entertainment later?”

“Absolutely incorrigible,” Dorian moans, but he’s smiling. “There will be stipulations, however.” Bull agrees without concern. Whatever it is will be well worth it. “Very well.”  
\---

Bull has a good time with his Chargers who are, much as Dorian suggested, really fucking happy to see him. They don’t say that seeing him downed shook them--would never admit it, being the gruff bunch of assholes that they are--but he knows it’s true. So do they, he wagers, but that doesn’t mean they need to talk about it.

Their uproar carries down to the Rest itself eventually. Stitches takes a look at Bull and his wound, and after a few questions that Bull provides satisfactory answers to, he’s given the all-clear. Stitches gives him a potion that clears away the last of the lingering ache, right alongside a glare that tells him alcohol is out until at least tomorrow. 

“Oh and Chief?” He adds, nodding to the tavern door where Dorian made his exit not long before. “Nothing too strenuous. Give yourself a little time to recover.”

Bull agrees because he knows he has to, and focuses instead on the first real meal he’s had in a week. He has his boys, he has good food, and before much longer, he’ll have his ‘vint, too. Not a bad lot to wake up to.

They can manage non-strenuous, he thinks.  
\----

Bull returns from the baths the better part of three hours later to find Dorian in his room. The mage is lying on his stomach in nothing but a pair of cotton breeches. His eyes are lined but his hair isn’t done, still damp from his own wash, and for the second time that day, he’s paying more attention to the book in front of him than Bull. It changes more quickly this time, though. As soon as Bull’s in the room, Dorian looks up and hums, smiling a coy little smile that makes Bull’s heart do a weird twisting thing in his chest. 

“How nice of you to have bathed,” Dorian remarks. His tone is disinterested but his eyes are anything but. They’re prowling over every inch of Bull they can see from under those thick lashes of his, as subtle as a druffalo in heat. 

“You like?”

Dorian makes another pleased, noncommittal noise. The firelight casts a bronze flare to his bare skin as he rises, sinuously, from his bed. “I might.” Bull grins and moves over to him only for Dorian to lift a finger, shaking his head. Bull pulls up short. “Ah, ah, not today, Amatus. Medic’s orders. No strenuous activity for you.”

“Kadan--” but before he can finish Dorian is in his space. He snakes his arms around Bull’s neck and rises to the balls of his feet, leaning in until he’s pressed against Bull fully. Bull’s hands on his back, Dorian tilts his head up, lips perfectly parted to meet Bull’s own. 

Kissing this man, Bull thinks, will never get old. Every time he kisses Dorian, it’s like the very first time they did it: all crashing lips and barely-restrained lust. Even when it’s slow and sweet (like the way Dorian’s kissing him now, fast on the approach but long and gentle on the execution), Bull can still feel the same sparks down his spine, warming him from where the tips of his fingers are pressed to golden skin. He’s acutely aware of Dorian--of his natural scent, his cologne, the way his skin feels-- and every bit of that information is overload, from Bull’s lips all the way to the fizzling heat in his core. Always electric; now familiar, and no less exciting.

“I thought you said nothing strenuous,” Bull grins, pulling back just enough to whisper against Dorian’s lips. The mage surprises him by retreating far enough to look into Bull’s eye. Something in the twist of those lips says mischief. The lines of his body say several other things, too--none of them polite. Bull wants to swallow him whole. Probably counts as strenuous to try, though.

“Indeed,” Dorian agrees, as though reading Bull’s mind. “ _You_ are not allowed to exert yourself. I, however, am under no such restriction.” Bull’s grinning before he finishes, but Dorian squares his shoulders. That sculpted chin of his lifts just so, haughty and commanding. “Disrobe and get on the bed, Amatus.”

“Bossy!” Bull laughs, but he ditches his pants quickly enough. He makes no qualms: Dorian is hot as hell when he gets all regal, especially when it’s not being used as a deflection or a defense mechanism. His mage still feels a bit tense, though; Bull doesn’t know crap about the Fade, not really, but when Dorian is strung too tight there is a thickness to the air that even Bull can’t miss. “How do you want me?”

“Must I repeat myself?” Dorian quips. Bull’s grin widens but Dorian doesn’t do anything but smirk, folding his arms across his chest and stepping back out of Bull’s reach. “You’ve managed half of the direction. Do get a move on.” Bull could push it but doesn’t, making himself comfortable on Dorian’s pillows. The bed is just barely big enough for the two of them and certainly won’t hold up to any of their more rambunctious rounds. Then again, watching Dorian eye him like a panther from the other side of the room, Bull figures that’s the point. Kadan has a plan.

“Well, here I am,” Bull says. Dorian spends too long watching him, eyes dragging from Bull’s feet and up, lingering on his bad knee (braceless, today), his cock (still soft), his newest wound (definitely not going to scar, damnit) and finally his face. Once their eyes meet, Bull gives his most deliberate blink. “Whatcha going to do with me?”

“Oh, I’ve a thought or two.” Dorian’s breeches slide down with an alluring switch of his hips and a whisper of fabric, cotton pooling at his ankles like fine silk. Bull is content to watch as the beautiful man slinks across the room, still eyeing Bull all over. Hungrily, yes, but there’s more to it than that, something Bull still can’t fully place. “I suppose I shall have to show you,” Dorian purrs. His voice is sultry, wicked and smooth, and the promise in it rolls over Bull like a physical touch.

Right now, oh...Bull wants, but it’s not as acute as the signals Dorian’s sending, all tension and desire and something heavier underneath. There is rarely a day when Bull doesn’t ache to touch Dorian in one way or another (the fact that several of those ways have nothing to do with sex? More surprising still) and he knows the same is true for Dorian. 

\--and _oh_ , Bull knew it, he did, but finally, the note of wrongness clicks. The heaviness to the air, the little bit of ‘off’ in Dorian’s speech and movements. The nascent worry, yes, that was expected. The want? Same story, but Dorian’s want is not a day’s worth. For him it’s been a week, a week spent watching Bull falter and fight against the demons the poison set upon him. Their last night together feels like yesterday to Bull, but to Dorian, it’s been something much longer gone.

The warmth in his chest fanned to full flame, Bull buries the realization and returns his attention instead to Dorian, still watching him expectantly. The mattress dips as the mage climbs on, predatory and slinking on all fours until he’s straddling Bull’s waist. He’s still just watching, running his hands over Bull’s skin, tracing the lines of his chest, mapping the landscape of old scars. Bull can’t help it; as his hands settle on Dorian’s hips, he asks:

“What do you need?” Dorian snags up Bull’s mangled hand, lifting it to his face with both of his own. 

“To take care of you,” he whispers, and presses his lips to Bull’s palm. “Let me?”

Really, what is there to say to that?

“Yeah,” Bull agrees, “of course, Kadan.” Dorian’s answering smile is full of intent, yes, but it's also unbearably fond. He presses a second kiss to Bull’s hand before replacing it back on his hip.

“I am glad to see you've still got what little taste you had,” he says finally, burying the laden look with bravado and a _very_ deliberate movement of his body. Dorian’s tongue is wicked but the way he rolls his hips is even more so, heat searing through the sweetness. He slides down Bull’s body, trailing kisses and gentle bites as he goes.

“Hey,” Bull grouses, “-I have excellent taste!” He watches Dorian work his way towards his target, ass in the air and bare skin all but glowing in the warm light.

“Hmm,” Dorian says, not convinced. Bull starts a snappy reply; it dies in his throat as Dorian’s tongue drags a long, slow stripe up Bull’s length, soft lips closing on the head and suckling sweetly. It feels _amazing_ \--one more thing about Dorian that never gets old--and the man knows it. He tortures Bull with those gentle licks and suction for what feels like forever before pulling off with a wet pop. “...You do.”

Bull is staring, bemused at the comment and the twinkle in Dorian’s eyes. Too much blood rushing south, perhaps, because it takes another few seconds for the double entendre to land. By the time it does, Bull has enough time for “Ha” before the words are swallowed by more desperate noises. Dorian is a master of his craft, working Bull’s cock into his mouth and smothering his own little moans by drawing Bull ever deeper, sucking without reserve now, no longer patient enough to tease. Watching him, feeling him, Bull’s head drops back to the pillows with a groan. 

Dorian’s hands wander, cupping and fondling while his mouth and throat drive Bull to utter distraction. There is no ache in his body, no lingering worry. There is only the slide of Bull’s cock past Dorian’s lips, the smooth caress of manicured but calloused hands, the steady build of molten heat in bottom of his belly. For once, there is just the moment, and Bull’s mind is blissfully silent.

“Kadan--” he warns, only for Dorian to hollow out his cheeks. One of his hands slides further back, thumb brushing over Bull’s entrance with the faintest flare of warmth at its tip. Bull grunts in surprise as Dorian swallows around him and he’s lost, coming down his lover’s throat as his body caves to a week without being properly touched. Dorian swallows it all, licking Bull clean with leisurely, smug satisfaction on his face. The kiss he places to the head of Bull’s dick is dangerously close to cute, as is the way he props his chin on his arms, draping himself on Bull’s belly. “Damn, Kadan.” There are bunch of other things he doesn’t add, boneless and pleasantly tingling.

“Quite.” Dorian smiles, tracing one hand gently past the bandage on Bull’s side. “Though that hardly seems a fitting celebration for your first hours back amongst the properly conscious.”

“I can think of a thing or two that might round out the day,” Bull grins. Dorian squawks as Bull grabs hold and hauls him upright, repositioning the mage so he’s straddling Bull’s lap.

“Heathen!” Dorian growls, offended noises trailing into a simpering whine as Bull’s hand brushes against his cock. Bull manages one stroke before Dorian slaps his hand away. Bull allows himself a grumble, marking it up as a win when Dorian rolls his eyes and kisses the offered hand. Bull smirks and reaches for Dorian again, only to be smacked a second time. “No strenuous activity!” He hisses, lips parting with a sigh as he takes himself in hand, long fingers flitting up his erection. “You’ll have to content yourself with watching.”

“That’s just mean,” Bull mutters, and it’s true. The figure Dorian cuts is criminal, one hand braced on Bull’s stomach, the other stroking himself off. It’s criminal to be relegated to just _watching_ when Bull wants to be the one to take Dorian apart. He’s got no issue watching when he’s the one making Dorian squirm and pant but sitting idly by?

“Bull…?” He asks, nodding at the phial of oil within easy reach of Bull’s long arms. Bull heaves a long-suffering sigh and grabs it for him, groaning deep in his throat as Dorian slicks both hands.

“ _Kadan_ ” he whines, drawing out the n, feeling his own cock stir as Dorian resumes stroking with his right hand only to reach behind himself with his left. Bull can feel his legs tense as the first finger eases inside. “This isn’t _fair_.”

“Medic’s orders,” Dorian reminds him, pupils blown dark as he watches Bull’s face. Bull doubts that jerking off Dorian even _counts_ but he’s forced to remain hands off as Dorian wriggles, slipping a second finger inside. He continues to make Bull’s exclusion a struggle, the first sheen of sweat breaking on his forehead as he works at himself, rapid little breaths and noises making Bull’s toes curl in sympathetic need. Dorian’s hand starts moving faster, his balance shifting, thighs squeezing around Bull’s to stay upright. His teeth trap that plump lower lip and he _whines,_ rhythm faltering as he tries to speed up with his right hand and reach deeper with his left.

Bull makes one more grab for Dorian’s cock, flushed dark red in arousal now, and Dorian full-on stops stroking himself to bat Bull’s hand away. As he does so he slips down Bull’s thighs a bit, arse nudging up against Bull’s rekindled interest in the proceedings. The breathless chuckle he makes in response makes all the air flee from Bull’s lungs.

“Oh Amatus, why didn’t you tell me?” Dorian sighs but somehow conveys his pleasure in the sound. He shifts his hips back, withdrawing his fingers to take himself and Bull in hand at the same time. He groans the same time Bull does at the exquisite, frictionless pressure. Dorian starts moving again, both hands in tandem, the throb of his cock palpable against Bull’s own. Bull grunts as Dorian squeezes, picking up speed--and then he breaks the rules, grabbing Dorian’s thighs with his hands as the mage’s head tips backwards.

Dorian bucks his hips as he spills all over his hands, the sight and feel of him dragging Bull over the edge right after him. Dorian rocks and strokes until they’re both utterly spent, tension rushing out of him in sync with a belly-deep sigh. He makes a contented sound and reaches for a cloth; Bull beats him to it, handing it to him with what he knows is a sappy smile.

“You are _supposed_ to be letting _me_ do the work,” Dorian chides as he cleans them up. Bull shrugs, sliding down so he’s properly laying with one arm lifted.

“You did! Consider me properly cared for,” Bull assures him, patting the mattress at his side “-long as you get down here and keep me warm.”

“As though you need me for warmth,” Dorian grumbles. His mustache is a mess and hides the smile on his lips not at all. He tosses the cloth and snuggles in, arm over Bull’s belly and legs intertwined.

 _I just need **you** ,_ Bull thinks, pressing his lips to the mess of Dorian’s hair as sleep tugs at them both. Against his skin, Dorian smiles like he already knows.

**Author's Note:**

> Next Wham-Splat I'm saying weekends only, I can't do 24 hours when I work 12 or 13 a day xD
> 
> Thanks to @Cyber-Fairie for the cheerleading and read-throughs! (And Lily too, for listening to me whine :))


End file.
